And all that Jazz...

As you readers would know my life has become very very busy. You are probably wondering what I’m up to and why I havn’t written anything substantial in what seems to be a long time. This is a summary of what’s been happening.

Work
At present I’m working on a contract in town in a government department. This is my first substantial job. I’m really enjoying the experience and the team that I’m working in. I have a whole lot to learn about how things work within government but I’m looking forward to the future challenges I face in this field and endeavour. I am also currently working every second weekend as a library assistant. This should be an interesting role in which I can meet a range of people so this should be fun.

Mosaic
Mosaic is one of my major focuses of my energies this year. Mosaic is a community of believers that is exploring what it means to do church in non-institutional ways. We explore Christian spirituality and what it means to be a follower of Christ in the 21st century. We face an exciting and challenging year, and already seeing growth and excitement in what is happening. If you want to check us out you can go here

Life in General – Priorities
The last few weeks have made me ask numbers of questions about the way I live out my life – Its weird – Two things have really marked this period of time. 1. I now earn a lot more money than I have previously. 2. I have a lot less time than I had previously to do things with. This is different than my university life where I both had little spare time, and also little spare money (particularly in my honours year). Now I am trying to use the resources that God has given my wisely – I have identified the limitations – My physical health, my time and my money, now I need to identify the best way to get optimal performance (I know this sounds instrumental but it really isn’t). I have identified that I want to live intentionally in a way that makes the world a better place (this has become my goal for my life – linked intrinsically with Jesus’s commands to Love the Lord with all your heart mind and soul and to love your neighbour)

At present I’m struggling with this all. I’m starting to get into a rhythm and I’m starting to get my focus straight and placing my energy into those things that I see as the highest priorities. I really need prayed about this though. I want to invest my money and time in things that honour God. I want to be wise about this. Its hard sometimes to know if I’m getting it right.

I don’t want to just live for me, for status, for pleasure, for money. I want to live for something bigger than that. I want to live to see the gospel spread. I want to live to see justice established, I want to live to see Gods Kingdom come on earth as it is heaven. These are the pangs of my heart. I want to see this established through the skills, personality and character that God has given to me for his glory. I am a canvas that God is drawing his beautiful picture on, ripped, muddy, and broken I may be, but the loving creator God is performing his repair work, creating a beautiful piece.

My Wrestling with Worship

I've come to a point of wrestling with how I have seen worship, how I view Gods reality, I feel like it I'm shortchanging myself, or shortchanging God in how I've viewed what worship is.

Ok, so what do I essentially believe worship is, I believe it is honouring God with my life, acknowledging that he is that centre. I honour him and put God in the highest place in my life and in how I live. I want people to come into the throne room and see the whole train of his robe filling the room with Glory. I want people to know of the goodness of God, his righteousness and how he is just so amazing that I can not really describe him.

I also believe that Gods glory fills this present reality, but many times we cannot see it, that we fail to see his hand on creation, we fail to see his hand over our relationships with people, over life in general. We kind of steer away from this. Why?

I think its essentially that we have become very dualistic in our thinking, we separate the fact that God is in this present, the reality we inhabit right now, working and moving and challenging and changing us.

This comes from not having a wholistic view of Christianity. Many a times we limit "worship" to our Sunday morning songs at church. Do not get me wrong, I think songs are a form of communicating our relationship with God and thinking and mulling over what God has done for us, but we have to move from the worship session at church being about this. More problematic is that we can see the Sunday morning service as our spiritual "fix". A experiential drug, that frees us from the realities of the rest of the week. We live in the world, but feel like we become dirty by being in the world, the only way we can become clean is through our spiritual fix on Sunday morning. Our drug that gets us through the week. (This is a caricature I know, but it has some real impacts when you think about it.)

But worship is essentially our whole life, seeing the way we relate to people as being a spiritual activity, our work is a spiritual activity, me writing this is a spiritual activity. Many times we ignore that God is in our ordinary,day to day moments.

So why have I written this, why am I thinking this, where am I going with this.

I went along to a community of faith in the weekend where singing is not part of their worship, it might never be. But they want to see people come to know God and his reality. They have a heart for Wellington city and want to see it changed. This is really strange for a vineyard boy, a guy who has been brought up in a church that has led to loads and loads of new songs to the Lord. I know that we preach worship is all life but getting hold of this reality is really difficult sometimes and I've been struggling with it. I have essentially come to see singing as worship rather than seeing life as worship.

I am wrestling with this because it has again created a crisis in my thinking, what does worship look like, do I worship God in spirit and in truth, why has singing become so important to me, is it part of my cultural outlook rather than the reality I should live in?

What does it mean to say Jesus is Lord? What does it mean to see my whole life as worship, how does this look like moving forward? How do I become more wholistic in my faith experience?

More on this as time goes on!

Not my Dream! - Or Part 3 in a continuing series on Love and Movement

These are the edited lyrics to Switchfoots American Dream, I just needed to continue expressing how I'm feeling, about life, about moving forward into the dreams of the God, out of the lies, the lies of Disney Jesus, which hollows out the message of the gospel and replaces Jesus with a domesticated image, rather than the radical Lord I follow and serve and worship.

Jesus does not want us yoked to the idea that success, security and money will bring us happiness. The only thing that can bring us salvation is Jesus' saving love - shown by his death of the cross. I want to live and die for bigger things! I want to show people to Jesus, by the way I live, act, and engage with them. This is a continuing process, something that costs, but man is it the only way to live!

When success is equated with excess
The ambition for excess wrecks us
As top of the mind becomes the bottom line
When success is equated with excess
If you're time ain't be nothing for money
I start to feel really bad for you honey
Maybe honey put you're money where your mouth's been running
If you're time ain't be nothing but money

I want out of this machine
It doesn't feel like freedom

(chorus)
This ain't my dream
I want to live and die for bigger things
I'm tired of fighting for just me
This ain't my dream
When success is equated with excess
When we're fighting for the beamer, the lexus
As the heart and soul breathing the company goals
Where success is equated with excess

I want out of this machine
It doesn't feel like freedom

(chorus)
Cause baby's always talkin 'bout a ring
And talk has always been the cheapest thing
Is it true would you do what I want you to
If I show up with the right amount of bling?
Like a puppet on a monetary string
Maybe we've been caught singing....
But
.... That ain't my dream

(chorus)

If you are wondering where this is all going, stay tuned, wrestle with the words, as I too wrestle with them, and try to follow the ways of the Master.

This has been such a spiritually challenging, stretching, and revealing week!

Love is a Movement - Pt 2 - The Fear of Movement

Ages ago my friend Mike Brantley wrote a blog entitled "why do we run back to Egypt and whine so much". We leave the slavery of our society, or sin, of life and run towards Gods arms, then we feel like we are alone, we see that living a life following the will of God is a struggle. We want the comfort back in Egypt where we were fed, clothed and we seemed to be happy.

The problem with going back is what we lose, we lose our freedom to the shackles of consumerism, to the shackles of the worries of a life that is ordinary. Egypt is not really that good, its a place full of slavery!

But we continue looking back, we whine, and thirst for that which can only quench us temporarily.

Oh man I struggle as I write these words.

Look at the world we want so badly, we seem to continue wanting to go back to comfort, but what does the comfort provide for us. No comfort!

Look at what this longing for more has brought us!
High divorce rates
High Suicide rates
Large numbers of beatings and homicides around what is meant to be the best times of the year, Christmas
A Breakdown of community
selfishness, loneliness, and spiritual poverty.
High levels of consumer debt

The thing is I talk about these in reference to the world, but whats occurring in our church bodies us probably similar
- People struggling with long hours at work because of the level of debt they have. Not having time for families
- a longing for consumer goods to keep up with the Jones.
- credit debt
- High divorce rates among christian families
- Not enough parenting due to the fact that we have become obsessed with work and providing consumer goods to our kids, rather than spending time caring for them, giving them teaching and showing them who Christ is through relationships with neighbours, with fellow Christians and with them
- and when asked to change we say its too hard, too difficult, we can't change and we go forward, as broken individuals, not realising our need, that there is a way we can change. God holds the freedom to break free of our shackles, we have to be willing to trust him and push forward.

Being uncomfortable means making hard choices, means that we are going to give up that which we feel we hold dear, and taking hold of the only one that can give us freedom, Jesus Christ

We have to move past the idea of success being about what we have, the treasures we have built up, the kingdoms we create and move into the presence of God and asks what he treasures, what he wants us to put our efforts into.

For some it will be fine, they have their priorities sorted, but others are going to have to take costly decisions, refocusing their priorities on God, a God of freedom and love!

Freedom is not found in things, in material wealth or goods. The stuff we have can actually lead us further into spiritual poverty and hold us back from the plans that God has for us. The resources that God has given are Gods, not ours! We need to keep on coming back, critiquing ourselves, looking forward to where God wants us to be, rather than looking back at what seemed so good, but actually enslaved us. Moving forward is going to be costly, and its something that I wrestling through with fear and trembling!

Question for your thoughts/discussion

Would Jesus Go to Church?





How do you think Jesus would feel in your Church?

Jesus - Who are we Following?

What is the picture of Jesus?
He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant.
So which one do you want to be?
Who is this that you follow?
This picture of the Pavalova Quarter Acre Paradise?
If Jesus was here would you walk by on the other side?
Or fall down and worship at His holy feet?
Blessed are the poor in Spirit
Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land?
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sands?
Because my Jesus bled and died for my sins.
He spent His time with thieves, sluts and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the rich.
So which one do you want to be?
Who is this that you follow?
This picture of the Pavalova Quarter Acre Paradise?
If Jesus was here would you walk by on the other side?
Or fall down and worship at His holy feet?
Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion
is how you see Him as He dies for your sins
But the Word says he was battered and scarred or did you miss that part.
Sometimes I doubt we’d recognise Him
Because my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable
So which one do you want to be?
Because my Jesus would never be accepted in my Church
The blood and dirt on His feet would stain the carpet
He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud
I think He’d prefer to be with the blanket man to this stained glass crowd
And I know He can hear me if I cry out loud.
I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my JesusI want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
Not a poster child for prosperity, but like my my Jesus
You see I am tired of living for success and popularity.
I want to be like my Jesus, but I’m not sure what that means to be like You, Jesus.


The Word
Became flesh
with hands
to draw in dirt
clearing away the
stained bed sheets
stiring hearts
homeless
visiting the paralytic
through friends

-Laila Blanchard
In Sub-merge by John B.Hayes


Are we willing to accept the radical image of Jesus, or are we just serving an image of Jesus painted in an exceptable way that we can easily accept
Are we willing to accept the costs of living the life that God has called us to?
What step is God challenging us to take in our faith life – what is our next step in discipleship?

James 2:14-17
What good is it, dear brothers and sisters. If you say you have faith but you don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well” – but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does it do.
So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

Repainting our Image of Jesus

Who is Jesus to you? How have you painted him? Is your image of Jesus western middle class, would be comfortable singing a few songs in church on Sunday. Or is your Jesus the radical, Marxist student, who will steal from the rich to give to the poor, the man who is looking to overthrow the government because of its corruption, or is your Jesus a poor Middle Eastern Man, who accosted the Hypocrites, showing them up for who they were, would only accept those followers who would give up all to follow him, accepted the rich and the poor into his community of faith, cared for the sick, the lost the lonely, Fed the Hungry and gave his all to show that He is the way to heaven and that he is divinity in human form.

Our View of Christ matters, If we sanitise the image of Christ, we are sanitising Gods call for us. Gods call for us is to be radical Christ followers. The middle class image of Jesus doesn’t do, because Christ was not about us been comfortable pew warmers. The image of Christ as a Marxist doesn’t do, because it forgets that Jesus accepted all into his arms, including the Tax collector, the image of Crony Capitalism in the Roman Period. At the moment I believe its closest to the last image of Jesus. We are called to embrace all those who are longing for something more, something deeper. We are called to be active, showing Gods love through our lives, reaching out and touching those around us.


God wants us to be real Followers of him, not people who attend church because its good then walk away after the service, not changing anything in our lives. Its about our whole life being aligned with Gods will. I repeat, we are not made to be Sunday followers, we are to be following Christ daily, following his call on our life.

I don’t care who you reach out to in your life, be they rich, poor, black, gay, straight, man or women, but do! Reach out beyond your comfort zone, share your life with those around you. Shine your light daily. Discover what God wants for your life. Learn to follow Jesus with Your All!

We are called to follow the man of sorrows